“Gertrude doesn’t like dogs,” said Otis.
“Is she the owner?” I asked.
“Yes, I mean, no, I mean . . .” He finally looked up. He pointed at the fish tank. “That Gertrude. The parrot. I named her after the owner.”
“Gertrude’s a pretty bird!” screamed Gertrude.
“She might like Winn-Dixie,” I told Otis. “Almost everybody does. Maybe he could come inside and meet her, and if the two of them get along, then could I have the job?”
“Maybe,” Otis mumbled. He looked down at the counter again.
So I went and opened the door, and Winn-Dixie came trotting on inside the store.
“Dog!” screamed Gertrude.
“I know it,” Otis told her.
And then Gertrude got real quiet. She sat on the top of the fish tank and cocked her head from one side to the other, looking at Winn-Dixie. And Winn-Dixie stood and stared back at her. He didn’t hardly move. He didn’t wag his tail. He didn’t smile. He didn’t sneeze. He just stared at Gertrude and she stared at him. And then she spread her wings out real far and flew and landed on top of Winn-Dixie’s head.
“Dog,” she croaked.
Winn-Dixie wagged his tail just a little tiny bit.
And Otis said, “You can start on Monday.”
“Thank you,” I told him. “You won’t be sorry.”
On the way out of Gertrude’s Pets, I said to Winn-Dixie, “You are better at making friends than anybody I have ever known. I bet if my mama knew you, she would think you were the best dog ever.”
Winn-Dixie was smiling up at me and I was smiling down at him, and so neither one of us was looking where we were going and we almost bumped right into Sweetie Pie Thomas. She was standing there, sucking on the knuckle of her third finger, staring in the window of Gertrude’s Pets.
She took her finger out of her mouth and looked at me. Her eyes were all big and round. “Was that bird sitting on that dog’s head?” she asked. She had her hair tied up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon. But it wasn’t much of a ponytail, it was mostly ribbon and a few strands of hair.
“Yes,” I told her.
“I seen it,” she said. She nodded her head and put her knuckle back in her mouth. Then she took it out again real quick. “I seen that dog in church, too. He was catching a mouse. I want a dog just like it, but my mama won’t let me get no dog. She says if I’m real good, I might get to buy me a goldfish or one of them gerbils. That’s what she says. Can I pet your dog?”
“Sure,” I told her.
Sweetie Pie stroked Winn-Dixie’s head so long and serious that his eyes drooped half closed and drool came out of the side of his mouth. “I’m going to be six years old in September. I got to stop sucking on my knuckle once I’m six,” said Sweetie Pie. “I’m having a party. Do you want to come to my party? The theme is pink.”
“Sure,” I told her.
“Can this dog come?” she asked.
“You bet,” I told her.
And all of a sudden, I felt happy. I had a dog. I had a job. I had Miss Franny Block for a friend. And I had my first invitation to a party in Naomi. It didn’t matter that it came from a five-year-old and the party wasn’t until September. I didn’t feel so lonely anymore.
Just about everything that happened to me that summer happened because of Winn-Dixie. For instance, without him, I would never have met Gloria Dump. He was the one who introduced us.
What happened was this: I was riding my bike home from Gertrude’s Pets and Winn-Dixie was running along beside me. We went past Dunlap and Stevie Dewberry’s house, and when Dunlap and Stevie saw me, they got on their bikes and started following me. They wouldn’t ride with me; they just rode behind me and whispered things that I couldn’t hear. Neither one of them had any hair on his head, because their mama shaved their heads every week during the summer because of the one time Dunlap got fleas in his hair from their cat, Sadie. And now they looked like two identical bald-headed babies, even though they weren’t twins. Dunlap was ten years old, like me, and Stevie was nine and tall for his age.
“I can hear you,” I hollered back at them. “I can hear what you’re saying.” But I couldn’t.
Winn-Dixie started to race way ahead of me.
“You better watch out,” Dunlap hollered. “That dog is headed right for the witch’s house.”
“Winn-Dixie,” I called. But he kept on going faster and hopped a gate and went into the most overgrown jungle of a yard that I had ever seen.
“You better go get your dog out of there,” Dunlap said.
“The witch will eat that dog,” Stevie said.
“Shut up,” I told them.
I got off my bike and went up to the gate and hollered, “Winn-Dixie, you better come on out of there.”
But he didn’t.
“She’s probably eating him right now,” Stevie said. He and Dunlap were standing behind me. “She eats dogs all the time.”
“Get lost, you bald-headed babies,” I said.
“Hey,” said Dunlap, “that ain’t a very nice way for a preacher’s daughter to talk.” He and Stevie backed up a little.
I stood there and thought for a minute. I finally decided that I was more afraid of losing Winn-Dixie than I was of having to deal with a dog-eating witch, so I went through the gate and into the yard.
“That witch is going to eat the dog for dinner and you for dessert,” Stevie said.
“We’ll tell the preacher what happened to you,” Dunlap shouted after me.
By then, I was deep in the jungle. There was every kind of thing growing everywhere. There were flowers and vegetables and trees and vines.
“Winn-Dixie?” I said.
“Heh-heh-heh.” I heard: “This dog sure likes to eat.”
I went around a really big tree all covered in moss, and there was Winn-Dixie. He was eating something right out of the witch’s hand. She looked up at me. “This dog sure likes peanut butter,” she said. “You can always trust a dog that likes peanut butter.”
She was old with crinkly brown skin. She had on a big floppy hat with flowers all over it, and she didn’t have any teeth, but she didn’t look like a witch. She looked nice. And Winn-Dixie liked her, I could tell.
“I’m sorry he got in your garden,” I said.
“You ain’t got to be sorry,” she said. “I enjoy a little company.”
“My name’s Opal,” I told her.
“My name’s Gloria Dump,” she said. “Ain’t that a terrible last name? Dump?”
“My last name is Buloni,” I said. “Sometimes the kids at school back home in Watley called me ‘Lunch Meat.’”
“Hah!” Gloria Dump laughed. “What about this dog? What you call him?”
“Winn-Dixie,” I said.
Winn-Dixie thumped his tail on the ground. He tried smiling, but it was hard with his mouth all full of peanut butter.
“Winn-Dixie?” Gloria Dump said. “You mean like the grocery store?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
“Whooooeee,” she said. “That takes the strange-name prize, don’t it?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
“I was just fixing to make myself a peanut-butter sandwich,” she said. “You want one, too?”
“All right,” I said. “Yes, please.”
“Go on and sit down,” she said, pointing at a lawn chair with the back all busted out of it. “But sit down careful.”
I sat down careful and Gloria Dump made me a peanut butter sandwich on white bread.
Then she made one for herself and put her false teeth in, to eat it; when she was done, she said to me, “You know, my eyes ain’t too good at all. I can’t see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart. Why don’t you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so as I can see you with my heart.”
And because Winn-Dixie was looking up at her like she was the best thing he had ever seen, and because the peanut-butter sandwich had been so good, and becaus
e I had been waiting for a long time to tell some person everything about me, I did.
I told Gloria Dump everything. I told her how me and the preacher had just moved to Naomi and how I had to leave all my friends behind. I told her about my mama leaving, and I listed out the ten things that I knew about her; and I explained that here, in Naomi, I missed Mama more than I ever had in Watley. I told her about the preacher being like a turtle, hiding all the time inside his shell. I told her about finding Winn-Dixie in the produce department and how, because of him, I became friends with Miss Franny Block and got a job working for a man named Otis at Gertrude’s Pets and got invited to Sweetie Pie Thomas’s birthday party. I even told Gloria Dump how Dunlap and Stevie Dewberry called her a witch. But I told her they were stupid, mean, bald-headed boys and I didn’t believe them, not for long anyhow.
And the whole time I was talking, Gloria Dump was listening. She was nodding her head and smiling and frowning and saying, “Hmmm,” and “Is that right?”
I could feel her listening with all her heart, and it felt good.
“You know what?” she said when I was all done.
“What?”
“Could be that you got more of your mama in you than just red hair and freckles and running fast.”
“Really?” I said. “Like what?”
“Like maybe you got her green thumb. The two of us could plant something and see how it grows; test your thumb out.”
“Okay,” I said.
What Gloria Dump picked for me to grow was a tree. Or she said it was a tree. To me, it looked more like a plant. She had me dig a hole for it and put it in the ground and pat the dirt around it tight, like it was a baby and I was tucking it into bed.
“What kind of tree is it?” I asked Gloria Dump.
“It’s a wait-and-see tree,” she said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you got to wait for it to grow up before you know what it is.”
“Can I come back and see it tomorrow?” I asked.
“Child,” she said, “as long as this is my garden, you’re welcome in it. But that tree ain’t going to have changed much by tomorrow.”
“But I want to see you, too,” I said.
“Hmmmph,” said Gloria Dump. “I ain’t going nowhere. I be right here.”
I woke Winn-Dixie up then. He had peanut butter in his whiskers, and he kept yawning and stretching. He licked Gloria Dump’s hand before we left, and I thanked her.
That night when the preacher was tucking me into bed, I told him how I got a job at Gertrude’s Pets, and I told him all about making friends with Miss Franny Block and getting invited to Sweetie Pie’s party, and I told him about meeting Gloria Dump. Winn-Dixie lay on the floor, waiting for the preacher to leave so he could hop up on the bed like he always did. When I was done talking, the preacher kissed me good night, and then he leaned way over and gave Winn-Dixie a kiss, too, right on top of his head.
“You can go ahead and get up there now,” he said to Winn-Dixie.
Winn-Dixie looked at the preacher. He didn’t smile at him, but he opened his mouth wide like he was laughing, like the preacher had just told him the funniest joke in the world; and this is what amazed me the most: The preacher laughed back. Winn-Dixie hopped up on the bed, and the preacher got up and turned out the light. I leaned over and kissed Winn-Dixie, too, right on the nose, but he didn’t notice. He was already asleep and snoring.
That night, there was a real bad thunderstorm. But what woke me up wasn’t the thunder and lightning. It was Winn-Dixie, whining and butting his head against my bedroom door.
“Winn-Dixie,” I said. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t pay any attention to me. He just kept beating his head against the door and whining and whimpering; and when I got out of bed and went over and put my hand on his head, he was shaking and trembling so hard that it scared me. I knelt down and wrapped my arms around him, but he didn’t turn and look at me or smile or sneeze or wag his tail, or do any normal kind of Winn-Dixie thing; he just kept beating his head against the door and crying and shaking.
“You want the door open?” I said. “Huh? Is that what you want?” I stood up and opened the door and Winn-Dixie flew through it like something big and ugly and mean was chasing him.
“Winn-Dixie,” I hissed, “come back here.” I didn’t want him going and waking the preacher up.
But it was too late. Winn-Dixie was already at the other end of the trailer, in the preacher’s room. I could tell because there was a sproi-i-ing sound that must have come from Winn-Dixie jumping up on the bed, and then there was a sound from the preacher like he was real surprised. But none of it lasted long, because Winn-Dixie came tearing back out of the preacher’s room, panting and running like crazy. I tried to grab him, but he was going too fast.
“Opal?” said the preacher. He was standing at the door to his bedroom, and his hair was all kind of wild on top of his head, and he was looking around like he wasn’t sure where he was. “Opal, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. But just then there was a huge crack of thunder, one so loud that it shook the whole trailer, and Winn-Dixie came shooting back out of my room and went running right past me and I screamed, “Daddy, watch out!”
But the preacher was still confused. He just stood there, and Winn-Dixie came barreling right toward him like he was a bowling ball and the preacher was the only pin left standing, and wham, they both fell to the ground.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Opal?” said the preacher. He was lying on his stomach, and Winn-Dixie was sitting on top of him, panting and whining.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Opal,” the preacher said again.
“Yes sir,” I said louder.
“Do you know what a pathological fear is?”
“No sir,” I told him.
The preacher raised a hand. He rubbed his nose. “Well,” he said, after a minute, “it’s a fear that goes way beyond normal fears. It’s a fear you can’t be talked out of or reasoned out of.”
Just then there was another crack of thunder and Winn-Dixie rose straight up in the air like somebody had poked him with something hot. When he hit the floor, he started running. He ran back to my bedroom, and I didn’t even try to catch him; I just got out of his way.
The preacher lay there on the ground, rubbing his nose. Finally, he sat up. He said, “Opal, I believe Winn-Dixie has a pathological fear of thunderstorms.” And just when he finished his sentence, here came Winn-Dixie again, running to save his life. I got the preacher up off the floor and out of the way just in time.
There didn’t seem to be a thing we could do for Winn-Dixie to make him feel better, so we just sat there and watched him run back and forth, all terrorized and panting. And every time there was another crack of thunder, Winn-Dixie acted all over again like it was surely the end of the world.
“The storm won’t last long,” the preacher told me. “And when it’s over, the real Winn-Dixie will come back.”
After a while, the storm did end. The rain stopped. And there wasn’t any more lightning, and finally, the last rumble of thunder went away and Winn-Dixie quit running back and forth and came over to where me and the preacher were sitting and cocked his head, like he was saying, “What in the world are you two doing out of bed in the middle of the night?”
And then he crept up on the couch with us in this funny way he has, where he gets on the couch an inch at a time, kind of sliding himself onto it, looking off in a different direction, like it’s all happening by accident, like he doesn’t intend to get on the couch, but all of a sudden, there he is.
And so the three of us sat there. I rubbed Winn-Dixie’s head and scratched him behind the ears the way he liked. And the preacher said, “There are an awful lot of thunderstorms in Florida in the summertime.”
“Yes sir,” I said. I was afraid that maybe he would say we couldn’t keep a dog who went crazy with pathological
fear every time there was a crack of thunder.
“We’ll have to keep an eye on him,” the preacher said. He put his arm around Winn-Dixie. “We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get out during a storm. He might run away. We have to make sure we keep him safe.”
“Yes sir,” I said again. All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.
Me and Winn-Dixie got to Gertrude’s Pets so early for my first day of work that the CLOSED sign was still in the window. But when I pushed on the door, it swung open, and so we went on inside. I was about to call out to Otis that we were there, but then I heard music. It was the prettiest music I have ever heard in my life. I looked around to see where it was coming from, and that’s when I noticed that all the animals were out of their cages. There were rabbits and hamsters and gerbils and mice and birds and lizards and snakes, and they were all just sitting there on the floor like they had turned to stone, and Otis was standing in the middle of them. He was playing a guitar and he had on skinny pointy-toed cowboy boots and he was tapping them while he was playing the music. His eyes were closed and he was smiling.
Winn-Dixie got a dreamy kind of look on his face. He smiled really hard at Otis and then he sneezed and then his whiskers went all fuzzy, and then he sighed and kind of dropped to the floor with all the other animals. Just then, Gertrude caught sight of Winn-Dixie. “Dog,” she croaked, and flew over and landed on his head. Otis looked up at me. He stopped playing his guitar and the spell was broken. The rabbits started hopping and the birds started flying and the lizards started leaping and the snakes started slithering and Winn-Dixie started barking and chasing everything that was moving, and Otis shouted, “Help me!”